Sir Thomas Brown, too, in his Religio Medici, says--"There is music even
in beauty," &c. The coincidence, no doubt, is worth observing, and the
task of "tracking" thus a favourite writer "in the snow (as Dryden
expresses it) of others" is sometimes not unamusing; but to those who
found upon such resemblances a general charge of plagiarism, we may
apply what Sir Walter Scott says, in that most agreeable work, his Lives
of the Novelists:--"It is a favourite theme of laborious dulness to
trace such coincidences, because they appear to reduce genius of the
higher order to the usual standard of humanity, and of course to bring
the author nearer to a level with his critics."]

[Footnote 108: It will be seen, however, from a subsequent letter to Mr.
Murray, that he himself was at first unaware of the peculiar felicity of
this epithet; and it is therefore, probable, that, after all, the merit
of the choice may have belonged to Mr. Gifford.]

* * * * *

Immediately after succeeded another note:--

"Did you look out? Is it _Medina_ or _Mecca_ that contains the
_Holy_ Sepulchre? Don't make me blaspheme by your negligence. I
have no book of reference, or I would save you the trouble. I
_blush_, as a good Mussulman, to have confused the point.

"Yours, B."

* * * * *